The Oscar-winning actress puts on an acting tour-de-force in the new space thriller directed by Alfonso Cuaron, and she admits the gripping flick made her fall in love with her profession all over again.

She said: ''I've been granted many times to have different experiences [in my career]. There's the work and there's a career. I can't control the career aspect because it's all about timing and other things.

''For me, it was a rebirth in my excitement at filmmaking and my part in it. Alfonso didn't have to be collaborative, but he's one of the most collaborative people I've worked with. So it was a rebirth in my faith in why I chose this profession.''

Bullock had longed to work with Cuaron, who wrote the film's script with his brother Jonas Cuaron, and was shocked to be offered the role of Dr. Ryan Stone in the movie.

She explained: ''I had been such an extreme admirer of Alfonso's body of work and it was one of those dreams ... 'If I can only work with...' The joke in my office was, every time we had a script, 'Do you think Alfonso will direct it?' We knew the answer was no because he writes his own material. But I always used his films as examples of things I loved, to say what we should aspire to.

''And then it came up that he had this project and I had no intention of working. They said, 'He'll come to Austin.' I said, 'What? Alfonso Cuaron is coming to Austin?' And he did, and the conversation that we had when he came had nothing to do with how to make the film or what kind of film we'd be making; it had to do with the emotional core of what he felt this film was about.''